Or maybe your computer is just slow?

No matter how carefully you may plan your day, the unexpected can happen, or in my case, today my computer was just extremely slow, or at least felt like it! One of my Pressure-Free tools is to create some slogans: short phrases you can say out loud or in your head to prevent triggering excess stress hormones. You can use your slogans when the unexpected shows up. Here are come of mine:

Stay up! (I lift my posture and imagine that I am staying above the problem or situation so that I can gain perspective.)

Let it go! (Is it really worth going into fight-or-flight and messing up my mind and body for hours over this?)

It seems like a decade ago, getting together for business meetings and for pleasure was a lot easier. I recently tried to schedule a meeting with an organization that a few years back would have set the meeting that very week. Instead, I was told I would need to wait over two months!! And two decades ago, we all responded to calls and correspondence within 24 hours, often meeting the same day. Now, you are lucky if people return your text, email or phone call ever!

I like efficiency. Several years ago, I started using an online calendar scheduler to schedule appointments with clients, prospects and even personal get togethers. It has saved me and those who connect with me the hassle of going back and forth trying to find a date and time to meet. There are several out there in the ether. My needs are simple, so I use TimeTrade. I send a link to the person with whom I am connecting and they click and choose a time to meet by phone, webinar or in person. Then I receive an email notification and sync it to my calendars. I have received many compliments over the years for this simple way to connect. It’s saved me so much time and is cost-effective.

One aspect of my performance coaching is assisting my clients with how time is a stressor. Here is what one graduate student said about how working with me helped her:

As a college student, I know that time is very precious. I also believe that time is money, and one session with Elle has saved me well over 10 hours each week because of the tools I was given. If you are busy person, especially a student, I urge you to have this life-changing experience! – Parita Shah

You get to choose...

The power of qualifying your agenda: One goal-setting step I share with clients is to qualify everything on your agenda for your day with an adjective that describes how you want to feel while you are doing each activity. In other words, you set an intention about your emotional state rather than falling prey to the emotions of others, or your own negative emotions. I do this work at night for the next day, and the results are tangible. Even a dental appointment or an oil change can lead to game-changing opportunities when your are in a positive emotional state. A few years ago the night before I was bringing my car in for an oil change, I wrote “fabulous” next to it on my planner, and I decided in that moment to use my time there working on my ebook that I was creating for my course. I filled a bag with all that I would need for this work, and the next day, I spread everything on a sofa in the waiting room, and got to work with a smile on my face. A woman came over and asked me what I was doing. When I told her, she asked if I would come speak to her cancer support group. Having lost my mother to cancer, I was elated to go. At that small group meeting was a woman who would become my private client and experience transformative results from working with me, and she has since recommended others to me. She came that night because the topic intrigued her. I came because I seemed approachable by the organizer of the support group. If I had been in a crappy mood while my car was being worked on, the organizer would never have approached me and many people would not have been freed from stress and anxiety. How we show up matters.

Learn the most effective way to increase muscle development, sleep better, and stay healthy

Are you looking for ways to gain a competitive edge? Do you have high expectations for yourself in your sport this spring? Do you sometimes feel nervous before competitions? What if you could learn the fastest way to maximize the health of your muscles? What if you could learn how to keep your immune system high to ward off any colds and infections? In this video, I share with you how the release of stress hormones affects your coordination, your muscle development and bone strength, your immune system and your body’s ability to heal after workouts and injury. If you want more tips, sign in to the right and click the Student Athlete or Athletic Coach option.

How do you know if stress is affecting your performance? Here is a short check list:

Any of these are signs that stress is affecting you. The great news is that you can learn how to reduce and even eliminate all of these effects! The Pressure-Free Method is super easy to learn, however, you are complex, so it may take time and patience for full benefits to come your way. You are trying to break years of habits. Having suffered through a serious injury, followed by a serious illness my senior year in high school, and the tough journey back to health to perform in college, I have a first-hand perspective of the ups and downs and all the emotions that come with high expectations and high-level performance. Hundreds of athletes have worked with me to gain the emotional control it takes to perform at their best. It’s life changing. And it affects not only your physical performance, but your mental toughness and abilities improve as well. My mission is to help you unlock your true potential, one moment at a time!

When the slightest bit of hope can change everything...

Do you ever experience stress and overwhelm to the point where a hopelessness starts to set in? Perhaps you experience an event that really rocks your world, or something is coming up for you that seems too difficult. One of the greatest moments in my coaching practice, is when I help someone experience the smallest bit of possibility within themselves.

We live in a very conditional world. Pressure-Free is about unconditional love and support. It’s about learning to be your own best friend and provide that kind of love and support to yourself first, and then everyone around you. It is nearly impossible to do this when we have released stress hormones, because the mind is in fight-or-flight and cannot think logically or lovingly.

The hope of possibility is like a tiny shaft of light, that starts to melt the resistance of what is so hard, so painful. The hope seems to begin deep in our cores, radiating out until the tiny possibility breaks into action, illuminates, frees us from the darkness of stress and anxiety. Then we begin to walk in the light, work in the light, share in the light, love in the light. May you live in your light, Pressure-Free. -Elle

Here is a sample video from my online course.

The only way to know if my training would benefit you, is to experience it. Below is a link for you to sign in for a strategy session with me, and I thought you might like to see a sample video from my online course (above). This is from the Optimal Performance course and it shares what stress really does to our bodies and our minds.

I invite to experience a free strategy session with me by phone or webinar. During the session you will:

Build a vision of your optimal life with significantly less stress.

Gain clarity on what you would like to experience and achieve.

Discover obstacles and the deeper challenges that are preventing progress for you.

Learn the steps to overcome stress, anger, anxiety and under-performance.

Learn more about Pressure-Free and ask me questions.

If this sounds helpful to you, click right here. This an obligation-free, Pressure-Free opportunity for you to experience my coaching.

Tips to help you improve your focus.

Do you find yourself distracted? Losing focus? Doing things that take you away from what you’d really like to get done? Chances are the the deepest reason this is happening is that you are releasing too much of your stress hormones. Just one release will compromise your thinking, memory, decision-making and willpower for hours. Here are some tips to help you increase your awareness of what the distractions are, and how to start reducing them.

Deepen your mission in the moment. If we are really committed to what we are doing, there is less chance that a distraction will interrupt our flow. It seems as though, much of the time, we are only half-heartedly committed to our various endeavors. Asking yourself the deeper why can strengthen your conviction. Having deep discussions with someone about your why can also do this. For example, I have been half-heartedly reducing my sugar intake for about nine months. Over the holidays, I had a wonderful phone conversation with my second cousin in New Hampshire and we got talking about the diabetes II in our family. I watched her mother lose her eyesight and feet. I watched my father and his struggles, and my cousin shared her own. This conversation deepened my understanding and conviction, and sugar is no longer a distraction from my greater mission.

Ask yourself. “What is distracting me?” You can take a distraction inventory, using all your senses. I call my current fb live videos Taking Out the Trash because on my morning walks, I used to be distracted and annoyed by the trash in our neighborhood. The cups, bags, cigarette butts, wrappers. It was a visual distraction from my pleasant meditation with my dog. So I started to pick up the trash along the route. Joyfully. Glad to be of service to my neighbors along the route. (in their 80’s, 90’s and even one who is 100!) Curiously noting the odd piece. Happy, when the next day, there is no visual clutter. Sounds can be distracting. Smells. Temperature.

Next, ask yourself empowering questions like, “How can I reduce this distraction? “How can I co-exist with this distraction?” “How can I keep this distraction from taking me out of my flow?” The answer may not come immediately, but once you ask the question, your mind and body will seek answers.

Who are your champions? Who can you count on for encouragement? friendship? comfort? Throughout my schooling, I have had many wonderful champions. Professors, coaches and teachers that pushed me. Hard! Starting in 2010, thanks to the advice of Robert Allen and Mark Victor Hansen in their book Cash in a Flash, I asked a prominent business person to be my mentor. I seriously doubt that Pressure-Free would have been born without this champion in my life. My family members also pushed me to do things I never even considered to launch Pressure-Free. My video coach, Maria Andros, helped me get over the fear of getting in front of the camera so that I could share my simple Pressure-Free method out all over the world. The hockey moms I spend hours with in the stands as we watched our children on the ice are a group that comes together in times of need in truly amazing ways.

Perhaps this is a time when you can reach out and broaden your connections, grow your list of champions…

These negative emotions prevent you from performing at your full potential.

Do you ever doubt how you are going to perform? Or feel disappointment when you don’t perform as well as you hoped you would? All of the time that you wallow in these negative emotions takes time away from taking the actions you need to improve your performance in the future. You can apply my simple three-step tip that I show you in this video in many areas of your life:

an athletic event

a performance

a meeting

a presentation

a sales negotiation

a date

even dinner with your family!

Less time feeling doubt and disappointment will open up minutes, even hours in your day!